Sandeep Kolakotla, technology analyst at GlobalData, states: “Despite delays in the country’s smart city projects due to a shortage of funds, smart cities such as Agra, Chandigarh, Vadodara, Bengaluru, and Kakinada have been able to leverage technologies such as IoT/sensors, tele-assistance, data, and analytics, and are contributing significantly to India’s fight against COVID-19.

The smart city of Agra, for example, launched a video consultation service, allowing citizens to book appointments with healthcare professionals and even download prescriptions online from a dedicated website/app. Agra Smart City also partnered with the city council and the Agra police to establish a control room to monitor compliance with social distancing measures in various locations through video surveillance. It has also begun using AI-based analytics on surveillance data to generate alerts, which are configured via an app on the mobile phones of field staff.

Agra has also been working with Gaia Smart Cities, an IoT startup, to leverage its technology platform, which includes a COVID-19 self-assessment app built on Microsoft Azure to track COVID-19 cases. The platform allows citizens to self-assess their health risk and helps city officials track PIN code responses and take preventative measures. The collected data also provides real-time reports, helping authorities monitor trends across the city.

The smart cities of Bengaluru and Kakinada, on the other hand, have launched data dashboards that will serve as a single source for all pandemic-related actions and measures, as well as data collection. The dashboard will allow the government to monitor people in quarantine and their contacts. Furthermore, the platform will also help authorities track frontline workers, such as medical personnel in the field or in hospitals, compiling this information into a city and district database.

Another smart city, Varanasi, has deployed drones to spray disinfectant around COVID-19-sensitive areas of the city under the Smart Cities Mission (SCM). The city is also using CCTV surveillance and GIS technology, through a dedicated command and control center established under SCM, to closely monitor crowd movements during the lockdown period.

Kolakotla concludes: “While it is still too early to measure the level of success that India’s smart cities have achieved in managing the current COVID-19 crisis, there is no doubt in concluding that they have certainly led the country’s fight through the innovative use of technologies and setting the stage for other cities to follow their lead and become smarter.”.